It’s amazing what kind of practical effects a movie can get away with these days while still impressing the audience, but back in Alfred Hitchcock’s day there were even sneakier methods that could be used since one of his greatest movies was in black and white. Psycho still manages to stand out as one of the greatest Hitchcock tales ever made for the big screen, and it’s not hard to think that he might have had a few tricks up his sleeve throughout the movie that made it feel slightly less terrifying and had those secrets been widely known during the making of the movie. It’s likely that someone said something or that people figured it out at one point since even with black and white movies a person can only get away with so much. But what’s really amusing is that nudity, blood, and immoral behavior weren’t allowed to be shown in the theater back then, and the infamous shower scene took care of at least two of those issues since we don’t technically get to see much of the victim but it’s pretty obvious that she’s naked.
The next issue was the immoral act, the murder in other words, which was the sound of a knife being thrust into a honeydew melon apparently since it gave the needed sound of flesh being stabbed. That’s a little disturbing to think about really, but hey if it works. But the blood that’s seen to swirl into the drain was actually Hershey’s syrup if some folks couldn’t tell. The look of it is just off to those of us that have grown up well after Hitchcock passed away, especially since the blood splatter that’s been allowed in the movies for decades now has changed dramatically over the years, and a lot of people, without having a single degree in criminology, understand that blood tends to splatter during a violent act. A lot of us have watched enough crime dramas and Googled the idea to make certain.
Let’s be honest here, people watching Psycho weren’t simpletons and they didn’t likely believe that everything they were seeing looked absolutely realistic any more than people today do. The difference between then and today is that the practical effects have become far better than anything that was available back then, and it’s easy to think that from today been available back in Hitchcock’s time, a lot of people might have soiled themselves to see a fully fleshed-out zombie walking towards them, and might have gone ahead and called the National Guard if a xenomorph or Predator had come walking up to them. The point is that the practical effects that have been available to the directors in each era have gone a long way to help to make classics and convincing people just enough when it comes to believing in the veracity of the story. A lot of people probably knew that it was chocolate syrup or something similar, but the point is that they followed the story and kept watching until the tend, when the real twist came in and likely left a few of them wondering how they hadn’t seen it, to begin with.
Cinematic effects have been evolving for a while now and it’s fair to assume that at one point it might come down to the idea of either creating AI programs that can emulate certain actors, or creating actual robots that can bring people back to life by using their form and faces. The practical effects that have been used for so long have been worked on again and again, as entire teams of people working on one movie have been doing what they can over the years to increase the efficiency of how the effects look, how they sound, and how they affect the audience on a very visceral level. The sound of a knife stabbing into a melon might not sound like it would be effective, but there are sounds that are difficult to reproduce since their real-life comparisons aren’t exactly easy to replicate without doing something immoral. It would likely make some people nervous or anxious to learn how the sound effects are made at times, but while it’s nothing so bad that it could be called criminal, there are times when it’s fairly messed up.
The way that Psycho managed to get around the censors of the time was kind of impressive since Hitchcock skirted along the boundaries and made it evident that he wasn’t really interested in following the rules but was going to do so anyway, and he was going to do with style. The shower scene is one of those that almost everyone knows about since it’s been used in so many different ways over the years. Knowing how it was created doesn’t really destroy it thankfully, but it is an amusing tidbit to learn.
Follow Us
